Is there anything that ties the French, Sunsoft, Jackie Chan and Jump Force together? Believe it or not, they are all related to a cult manga from the 1980s called City Hunter. It was one of those franchises which became insanely popular in Europe (just like Lupin the 3rd), spawning actual French-produced movie adaptations. Hong Kong was also a big fan of the manga, as a 1993 movie based on it actually starred Jackie Chan in the titular role of Ryo Saeba. The manga was published on Weekly Shōnen Jump back in the day, resulting in Ryo becoming a playable character in the awful Jump Force. And finally, back when the manga and the anime were at their peak of relevance (or so I hope), a PC Engine game was developed by Sunsoft, only to be released solely in Japan, languishing there for the next 36 years…

Until now. Red Art Games and Clouded Leopard were able to secure the rights and source code from the Sunsoft original, get rid of all the paperwork, remaster it, and release it to a wider audience, for modern consoles. Old-school French anime enthusiasts, rejoice! Your cult classic is finally available in the West! For everyone else, however, what we have here is just a slightly more polished version of a pretty forgettable licensed game from 1990.

I guess the world hasn’t changed that much since 1990.

The City Hunter manga revolves around Ryo Saeba taking odd jobs such as rescuing hostages (usually beautiful women, because anime), doing some good old espionage, taking down evil megacorporation CEOs, and generally cleaning out the city from scummy villains and terrorists. The City Hunter game, on the other hand, revolves around three different missions, which can be chosen and tackled in any order. They only vary in theming, however, as they all play the same.

This is my biggest issue with this re-release: I appreciate the inclusion of a modern mode with an easier difficulty and improved enemy AI, but City Hunter, at its core, is a pretty mediocre game. The gameplay loop can be summarised as walking down linear corridors full of doors, hoping for one to lead you to an item or a new area. There is no map feature to speak of, so each level is basically a gigantic maze comprised of doors and infinitely respawning enemies. They are not hard to defeat, usually taking just a few shots, if that much, but they can ocasionally spawn in front of the door you’ve just gotten out of, and can even shoot you from outside the screen.

Running and gunning through painfully similar corridors until you sanity starts wearing out.

I know I shouldn’t expect much from the PC Engine (known as TurboGrafx-16 in the West), as, despite its Western name, it is more of an 8-bit machine that can render 16-bit graphics than an actual competitor to what the Mega Drive and SNES were able to offer back in the day. This is a very simplistic game in nature, developed by a company known for making ultra-challenging titles people were still inexplicably fond of (the Batman game for NES comes to mind), with increased levels of difficulty added just to pad out what would otherwise be a very short overall length. When you add in the limitations imposed by the PC Engine hardware, well, you can already imagine how fun the experience is.

Those are the extras you get. Stills. Not even a manga or something, sadly. I mean, they look good, but still…

There are some additional bells and whistles besides the new “Enhanced” mode, but they are not exactly game changers. There’s the mandatory inclusion of a rewind function and resolution options, as well as a filter, and scans of the original cartridge (or HuCard, in this case) and game manual. In this case, in Japanese, of course. The games themselves have been localized, and in the case of the French version, there’s an option for Ryo to be renamed as Nicky Larson, as this is how he is known there. A somewhat interesting novelty if you’re French, but that’s basically it.

The occasional trap. Because why wouldn’t a megacorporation have that right next to where their scientists are working?

My verdict for this re-release of City Hunter is similar to pretty much any other subpar licensed game I have ever tested. If you’re a fan of the source material, as niche as it might be nowadays, you might enjoy it for a few minutes, as this is the only City Hunter game that has ever been developed and released. If you’re not part of this very specific demographic, then there’s nothing about this game that will either make you enjoy it, or turn you into a fan of the manga. As much as I appreciate the improvements added by Red Art Games, they wouldn’t have been able to fix the core mechanics without making a brand new game – it might control well, but its awful level design and repetitive gameplay loop are just too obnoxious.

City Hunter is available now on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, PC, Switch and Switch 2. The original City Hunter was released on PC Engine in Japan only.

Reviewed on PS5.

A copy of City Hunter was provided by the publisher.